Alibaba says its AWS-a-like division embiggened by 138%

Biz has 2.3 million customers. Half a million of them actually pay, too

Alibaba’s cloud computing division Alicloud reported bumper growth of 138 per cent to $468m (£322m) for its full financial year 2016, as more paying customers flocked to the Middle Kingdom's AWS equivalent.

As of March 31, 2016, AliCloud had more than 2.3 million customers, including more than 500,000 paying customers.

The outfit has been keen to boost its international cloud expansion over the last year, which has mainly targeted Chinese companies seeking to expand abroad. Last year it promised to pump $1bn (£637m) into its cloudy arm, previously going under the brand of Aliyun.